Reflecting on the highlights of 2025
The last day of 2025 is here and wow has the year gone by quickly.
Almost one quarter of the hours this year we have spent on the farm seeding, planting, harvesting and driving the tractor.
It has been a great fourth year of our farm with a big increase in vegetables and citrus harvested and turned into meals for all of you.
We get the credit for building the farm but it is a two-way street and we can’t do it without all the support from everybody. Whether you support us by buying at the farmers market, the Davis Co-op or through the wholesale distributors or you just share with someone about us that makes a massive impact on us continuing to farm.
The support has been there for all the successes the farm had this year and through the challenges there were. We are able to take some risks with all the support we get and many of them are amazing learning opportunities for the future without jeopardizing the farm in next few years.
We will be back at the farmers market this Saturday, January 3, with lots of veggies and citrus. We will have the first lemons of the season along with bergamot and navel oranges.
There have been so many memorable parts of the year from every farmers market to the big harvests to solving a tiny problem that was just so annoying. Here are a few of our highlights of the year.
One of the biggest highlights of the year was the cooler than normal summer we had which allowed for large harvest of the tomatoes and peppers. The plants were loving the weather and every flower was able to survive and turn into a fruit that we got to harvest once ripened.
This year we sold double the amount of pounds of heirloom tomatoes and that is mostly due to the amazing years the Marvel Stripe and Copia varieties had. Even when we were harvesting four or five tomatoes off of each plant every week there kept on being more coming.
After some animals snacked on the ends of most of our peppers in 2024 it was great to be able to fully ripen them this year without getting damaged. The Jimmy Nardellos were so popular and we tried some new bell pepper varieties that worked better than previous once so we will see how they do in the different weather we will get in 2026.
This was the first full year of us having olive oil and it was very fun. It compliments the veggies so well and is a great gift when having guests or visiting those on vacation.
Getting through the entire cycle of olive trees and all the steps to take care of the trees was a good learning experience for the coming years to see how we can improve how we do it.
The first harvests of many of our tree crops came at the start of 2025 with grapefruit, oranges, mandarins, bergamot and lemons.
The citrus brought some brightness to the farmers market table throughout the first couple of months and delicious flavors in a time when there are not many fresh fruits around.
After leasing two additional properties in 2024, a few months into 2025 we signed the lease for another property in a very ambitious decision. This year on that property was all about learning how everything grows there and setting it up for success in 2026 and future years.
We have already got exciting plans for the land and are trying some different crops while growing more of some of the favorites.
It’s a slightly different climate so it will take some time to dial in how each crop grows and when they need to be planted to hit certain harvest date goals.
We are very excited for 2026 and after a few day of resting and spending time with family we are back to seeding in the greenhouse tomorrow.
It is a big seeding day with the highlight being the first succession of tomatoes which we increased for 2026.
Happy New Year’s!!
